ARLINGTON — In the past three seasons, Josh Hamilton has twice hit .300 with 30 home runs. He has wowed the nation with his home-run hitting prowess at the All-Star Game. He has won a Most Valuable Player award in the regular season and postseason.

It almost makes you shudder to think what he could do if he was truly in a good place from the start of the season to the finish.

Bad news AL pitchers: Hamilton is in a very good place.

As the Rangers begin to defend their first AL pennant Friday when they open the season against Boston, a more mature, better adjusted Hamilton prepares to begin his defense of the AL MVP. In the last 50 years, there have been repeat AL champs, but not an AL MVP. The last to do it was Roger Maris in 1960-61. All he had to do was break Babe Ruth’s season home run record.

“As long as he stays healthy,” Rangers manager Ron Washington said this week, “he can do just about anything he wants.”

The Rangers are taking steps to try to ensure Hamilton can stay healthy by moving him to left field from center. The thought being that he’s less likely to suffer fatigue-related injuries by having to do less running in left field.

The injury issue is a significant one. Hamilton missed the last month of the 2010 season after cracking a rib following a collision with the wall in Minnesota. In 2009, he played just 89 games because of a variety of injuries. He’s played 140 games just once in his four seasons — in 2008. That was really his first full season of major league experience after dealing with years of drug and alcohol abuse. By the middle of August, he was mentally and physically fried and limped down the stretch.

It’s easy to make the argument he’s never been quite as equipped to reach whatever his season ceiling may be as he is at the start of 2011. He is coming off his best overall year as a pro and has the financial security, thanks to a two-year $24 million deal.

He also doesn’t have the pressures he’s had at the start of previous seasons.

In 2007, he was a long shot to even make the Cincinnati Reds after being plucked in the Rule 5 draft and spent a lot of energy in spring training just trying to make the club. In 2008, he was dealing with all new surroundings after being traded to the Rangers.

In 2009, he seemed to be in a good spot, but he was hiding the fact he’d had a one-night relapse with substance abuse that didn’t come to public knowledge until later in the season.

And in 2010, he was coming back from a disappointing, injury-filled season that had plenty of observers wondering if he was a one-season wonder.

Now, the more likely comparison is Mickey Mantle.

Given his fielding, speed and power combination and his country-fried kid in the big city persona, Mantle has always been an easy comparison for Hamilton. Mostly those comparisons were based on tools and personality. Now, they are based on facts and statistics. Mantle is one of only three AL players to win back-to-back (1956-57) AL MVPs since the end of World War II.

“I think you are looking at Mantle all over again,” an unnamed scout recently told Sports Illustrated. “He’s the strongest guy in baseball and doesn’t have any holes.”

He closed up the holes in his swing last June by finally committing full time to a switch in his swing trigger-mechanism. He stopped the more complicated toe-tap trigger and went to an easier-to-maintain starting point. From the time he made the change on June 1 until the end of the season, Hamilton hit .405 with a 1.166 on-base-plus-slugging percentage.

The last AL players — who didn’t later admit to using steroids — to post a number that high for a full season: Mantle (1.177) and Ted Williams (1.257) in 1957. The only other time before that: Mantle in 1956 (1.169).

There’s that comparison again.

“I think he’s more knowledgeable of what he’s capable of doing,” Washington said. “He’s gotten more mature as a hitter and from a game-plan standpoint. More than anything, though, he understands what it means to be a presence and a good teammate. That makes anything possible.”

With Hamilton, “anything” may be hard to fathom. Few have gone where he is capable of going — and nobody has gone there in the last 50 years.

Catch Evan Grant all season on The Ticket (KTCK-AM 1310) at 9:35 a.m. Tuesdays with The Musers and 4:50 p.m. Wednesdays with The Hardline.

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